Janis Siegel
Doors Flung Wide Open
by Anil Prasad
Copyright © 2024 Anil Prasad.

Photo: Janis Wilkins

The multigenerational impact of Janis Siegel’s pioneering contributions to the worlds of jazz, R&B, and pop is profound and enduring.

The vocalist’s work as part of the genre-defying Manhattan Transfer between 1972 and 2023 yielded extensive achievements and accolades. With Siegel, it recorded 25 albums, received gold and platinum certifications, and enjoyed global hit singles including “Birdland,” “The Boy from N.Y.C.,” “Chanson D'Amour,” “Ray’s Rockhouse,” and “Twilight Zone.” Manhattan Transfer also inspired countless singers to pick up microphones and bravely explore the outer edges of what’s possible with vocal harmony.

In December 2023, the group brought its 50-year career to a close with a farewell performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The show, and the final tour leading up to it, delivered an expertly-executed career-spanning view of the quartet’s repertoire. For longtime and new listeners alike, it was a bittersweet experience, especially since the group remained in top form until the last note.

After the end of Manhattan Transfer, Siegel wasted no time in shifting focus to her solo career and collaborations. She had previously built a deep foundation for her next phase while Manhattan Transfer was active. During its existence, she made nine diverse solo records, in addition to duo LPs with Fred Hersch, Nils Landgren, and John Di Martino, and trio releases with JaLaLa, Mazel, and Requinte Trio.

Since 2024 kicked off, it seems like hardly a week goes by without Siegel performing around the world or in her New York City home base with the likes of Roni Ben-Hur, Kurt Elling, Jeremy Kahn, Lauren Kinhan, Pete McCann, The Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band, or Take 6—just to name a few.

And together with pianist, arranger, and composer Yaron Gershovsky, she just released her first post-Manhattan Transfer album, the ambitious The Colors of My Life: A Cy Coleman Songbook.

Gershovsky is a familiar face to Manhattan Transfer listeners. Since 1979, he has served as the musical director and keyboardist for the group, in addition to writing some vocal and instrumental arrangements for it.

Together, Siegel and Gershovsky dug deep into the legacy of Coleman, a legendary presence in 20th century jazz and Broadway circles. Several of his songs are ubiquitous mainstays of the Great American Songbook, including "Witchcraft" and "The Best Is Yet to Come,” both of which are included on the new recording.

The duo offer a fresh, highly-personal, and creative approach to the songs' arrangements, infusing them with new ornamentation, tempos, cadences, and atmospheres.

Given that both Siegel and Gershovsky had previously collaborated with Coleman on major projects, they had a keen sense of how far they could take things, while keeping his original intentions intact. Siegel worked with Coleman on his 2002 Kennedy Center production Songs for the New Millennium. And between 1989-1993, Gershovsky was the vocal arranger for Coleman’s Broadway and touring musical City of Angels.

During a Zoom call, Siegel discussed the making of The Colors of My Life, in addition to exploring a wide variety of career highlights, including her very first recording project as a pre-teen and several significant Manhattan Transfer moments.

Photo: Matt Baker

Since Manhattan Transfer’s final show, you haven’t let up for a second as a solo artist. Talk about your relentless drive to keep moving forward.

I have a lot of choices. I guess I could sit on the couch and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s curiosity that drives me in terms of engaging with the world and the people in it. Music is a never-ending pursuit and discipline for me. I live in New York City and it’s full of music and opportunities. I love it here and will continue to remain here until it gets too difficult.

When The Transfer ended, I saw the wisdom in the group retiring. I really did. It’s a different scenario than being a solo artist who continues on. With a vocal group like The Transfer, you’ve got more than one person, and then you have people with different health issues and energy requirements.

Also, I had partners who wanted to discover the other colors in their lives, to make the analogy with the Cy Coleman tune “The Colors of My Life.” So, there were other pursuits we hadn't had a chance to consider.

Honestly, the science of The Transfer is that there were songs people loved that they expected of us every concert. The vocal arrangements for those songs were created in the ‘70s and ‘80s. But voices change. They’re part of our physicality and sometimes it’s no longer possible to sing those arrangements in those keys. If you lower them, the whole arrangement gets muddy, and it just doesn’t work.

In addition, it was getting harder and harder to travel, as I'm sure everyone has noticed. And when you travel with a band, there are a lot of us, including a crew. So, we were schlepping 11 of us around the world and it was getting impossible to do from financial, energy, and spiritual perspectives. It became draining. These days, you can’t depend on anything. Flights are now delayed as a rule, it seems. It was getting to be pretty stressful.

We did our final concert at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. It was basically a super-spreader event. A bunch of us got sick with COVID-19, but afer recovering, I haven’t stopped working.

Initially, there was some anxiety attached to The Transfer retiring, but I’ve never had an opportunity to do solo music like this in 51 years. About seven years into the group, I started doing solo work, so it's not a new thing. But I’ve always positioned it around The Transfer’s schedule, which was always my priority. Now, suddenly, the doors are flung wide open. Exciting opportunities started coming in and I now have the time to explore them.

I’ve worked very hard all my life to keep my voice in shape. Those things continue. I remain full of energy and love to collaborate and engage in harmony singing. I love it all.

Yaron Gershovsky and Janis Siegel | Photo: Matt Baker

What drew you and Gershovsky to create The Colors of My Life, decades after working with Cy Coleman?

I think it came out of a conversation at the bar after a Manhattan Transfer gig. Yaron and I realized we had both worked with Cy. It was Yaron’s idea to do this. Cy’s work as a pianist is neglected. He started out as a jazz pianist and had a trio.

Cy wrote what was to become “The Best Is Yet to Come.” He started it as an instrumental and mentioned it to Carolyn Leigh, saying “Here’s something I wrote, but I don’t think anybody can sing it. The melody is unusual and a little difficult.” She said, “Let me take a crack at it.” It’s a pretty great lyric. And now many, many people have sung that song.

So, Yaron and I thought it was a great idea to make a whole album of Cy’s music. Although Cy wrote a lot for Broadway, he also wrote so many incredible songs that are part of the Great American Songbook.

We started the project before the COVID-19 pandemic. When the pandemic happened, it put the kibosh on everything. We had maybe three tunes down by then. We recorded them at Yaron’s house. I was upstairs in Yaron’s living room where he was also playing piano. We had Cliff Almond playing drums in the laundry room. And we had Boris Kozlov on bass in another room. We managed to get some things done that way.

So, that was the beginning. We chose to finance it ourselves and see what happens.

Talk about the relevance Coleman’s music has to listeners in 2024 that haven’t heard it before.

As a musician, I found his melodies deceptively simple and sophisticated. They’re also challenging. His songs are very interesting. He’s worked with incredible lyricists including Dorothy Fields, Carolyn Leigh, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The lyrical content addresses some universal feelings, truths, and emotions.

Describe how the creative process between you and Gershovsky worked.

The first thing we did was make lists of tunes. As the vocalist, I had a little bit of the upper hand in that. I had to pick tunes that I really felt I could add something to and feel emotionally connected to. I also wanted to something from City of Angels, because that’s the Broadway show Yaron worked on with Cy.

When I first heard “With Every Breath I Take” from the show, it literally took my breath away. [laughs] It’s a really difficult song to sing. It’s constructed beautifully, with a gorgeous melody. And then there are moments when there’s anguish in the melody. It’s really quite a song.

Yaron wanted time for his ideas to percolate and for his arrangements to gel. He did all the vocal arrangements.

The album came together really slowly and piecemeal, particularly because we were working as independent artists. It wasn’t like the old days in which the record company would give us a budget and then we’d go into the studio and do the whole record at once. We took our time with it, but that was fine.

Let’s discuss a few songs, starting with the title track. Coleman created a few different versions of it, including one with Tony Bennett on vocals. What did you and Gershovsky do to make it your own?

It’s a lot of fun for me to go through the songs and see what hits me. Then Yaron and I got together and had a listening session. He liked this tune, too. The challenge with it is we were plucking it from a Broadway show. So, there was context to the tune. The first half is about bright colors, and the second half is more somber, from another point of view. We asked ourselves, “How can these two things co-exist? Can we make sense of that outside of the context of the show?” We decided if we change the rhythmic foundation of the second half, it could work—and it did.

I liked the vibe of the song, including the idea of looking back at the colors of my life. I have to live in color myself. I feel you need to in order to see what’s going on out there. Life is pretty colorful. My home is also colorful. White walls drive me insane. I’ve got to have color around me.

The idea of the song is such a great thing to think about. When you think about your life, do you think of it in colors or in black and white? Some people can see colors when they hear words and music. It’s kind of psychedelic. I’m an old hippie. [laughs] So, I was very attracted to the song for that reason as well.

We chose to have The Crosby Street String Quartet perform on it. My buddy Fred Hersch had just used them on his latest project. We both knew some of the women in the quartet, so it all worked out beautifully. Some of them had also worked on some Manhattan Transfer records.

“Witchcraft” has enduring cultural resonance. Explore the unique elements you infused into it.

That was a difficult one because the iconic version for me is the one Frank Sinatra did. I’ve sung the song before, and I love it. I listened to different versions of it before we did ours, including one by my friend Peter Eldridge. He did it at a breakneck tempo. It’s really different and kind of challenging.

For our new version, I wanted to focus on the words. They’re evocative and poetic. I didn’t want to do it like Sinatra. I didn’t want to do it faster or anything like that. In fact, I thought “Let’s slow it down, because the 3/4 time signature allows for that. That enables the words to be heard while still having that romantic, sensual feeling.

I love this song. It’s surprising to me that when I mention we have a new album out with this song, that people don’t know Cy wrote it. The same goes for “The Best Is Yet to Come.” I guess Cy is more well-known with musicians and Broadway people. These songs are out there in the ether, and people know the songs as part of the Great American Songbook, but not who he is.

“Playboy’s Theme” features wordless, atmospheric vocals. Provide some insight into creating that arrangement.

Coleman was commissioned by Hugh Hefner to write the theme for Playboy After Dark. The track features Yaron’s arrangement and the four-part harmony backgrounds were right in my wheelhouse. I thought I would do it all myself, but then we decided to also have the wonderful Aubrey Johnson sing on it. She has such a beautiful, crystalline soprano voice. Yaron has worked with her previously and I also sing together with her whenever we possibly can.

Janis Siegel and Cy Coleman, 2002 | Photo: Janis Siegel Collection

What was it like to work with Coleman when you performed in Songs for the New Millennium?

It was absolutely thrilling to get the call from him to become part of his ensemble to put forth these new songs he was writing with Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Carl Anderson, Steve Tyrell, Patti Austin, and Lillias White were all part of it, too.

When I worked with Cy, I found him to be all business. He was all about the music, but he was very warm. He was from The Bronx, after all. He was a native New Yorker, but he was very supportive. I could see he loved to play and loved the process. He was delightful to work with.

He was tweaking and workshopping the songs at the start as I was trying to learn them. And usually, when people workshop tunes, they’ll do it someplace small like the 55 Bar—may it rest in peace—or some other little jazz club off the beaten path. But Cy picked The Kennedy Center to do the workshop to work out these songs. [laughs] He wanted to hear how the songs flowed in that context.

The songs he gave me were interesting. One was called “The Ballad of Billy T.” Alan and Marilyn Bergman were entranced with the story of this woman musician named Billy Tipton who couldn't get work as a woman, so dressed like a man. She ended up living her life as a man. It’s not as impossible as it sounds. She married a woman, and they lived as man and wife, and adopted children. I don’t think her kids even knew. There’s even a book about it. The tune is a jazzy piece with improvisation.

Another tune was called “53rd and 3rd.” It was about a busker on the street playing saxophone for free.

There was a duet during the show that Steve Tyrell and Patti Austin sang called “Being Without You.” That was just breathtaking to me. I always remembered it, so when it came time to do this record, I said to Yaron, “We have to do this song.” I sang everything myself and it worked fine that way.

There was another cool song too, called “Before We Lose the Light.” To my knowledge, this was one of the last things Cy did. And these tunes were never recorded by him.

What do you think Coleman would have made of this album?

Honestly, I think he would have loved it. I can only imagine he would have. I think he might have had some comments. A lot of songwriters get fussy and finicky about other people doing their songs sometimes. But I think it’s all very musical. We didn’t do anything that took the tunes out of their original vibe.

I’d like to go back to Manhattan Transfer concluding in 2023. What went through your mind as the last song “Birdland” was wrapping up and as you took your final bow at Walt Disney Hall?

To be honest, we were just so focused on doing the show, performing and singing. But it did occur to me that it could be the last “Birdland” and it made me sad. I can’t say that at some point it won’t happen again, because I don’t know. But “Birdland” really is my baby. It was developed for Manhattan Transfer, and we sang it at just about every show we performed. Sometimes, we’d perform it twice a night if we had two shows. It worked in every circumstance. We had a symphony chart for it. We had a big band chart for it. We could do it in many different situations. And people always loved it. I think the thing that attracted me to it in the first place was that I felt it was a pop record of the future. It was a sing-along, and sure enough people would join in on the chorus.

It was a deeply emotional moment at the end of the concert. I’m a harmony singer at my core. I got started at age 12 singing harmony. I also love writing harmony and being in the middle of harmony. I even like singing harmony with myself in my little studio. So, to not have Manhattan Transfer around as a vocal orchestra, and to not have the camaraderie and presence of my partners is very moving and sad for me.

The Manhattan Transfer, 2023: Cheryl Bentyne, Trist Curless, Alan Paul, and Janis Siegel | Photo: F. Scott Schafer

How do you contextualize the group’s accomplishments and the journey you experienced with it?

I think some of it had to do with timing and someone taking a chance on us. And that someone was Ahmet Ertegun. I think we appealed to his personal taste. And at that time, Atlantic Records was doing great. They had expanded mightily. They had Led Zeppelin, The Neville Brothers, and The Rolling Stones all making money for them. So, Ahmet could afford to take a little bit of a chance with us. Nesuhi Ertegun was a big supporter as well, but Ahmet was our guy.

Initially, I don’t think Ahmet really thought we could sell records. That was, on the whole, the feedback we were getting from all the record companies. They’d say, “We like them. They’re great. They’re great live, too. But we don’t think they can sell records.” Ahmet proved them all wrong.

I think the thing about Manhattan Transfer that distinguished us is we were largely unschooled in a way. Most of us didn’t come out of any music school or jazz education program. We all had serious life experience and much of it in music. Alan Paul was the only one with a music degree, and that was in music education. I’m a pop singer, really. My background is in pop and folk. So, we were coming at things from another angle, together.

I was singing jazz like pop music. Really, we were adding sophisticated elements to pop music that we were singing. I think all of us shared a broad love of many different styles of music. We never saw any reason whatsoever for why we would have to limit ourselves. Our credo was, “Let’s bring four-part harmony back into the zeitgeist. Let’s bring back this beautiful art form that was popular during the ‘40s big band era.”

We also wanted to visually express ourselves. That was always a part of it—to put that energy out there as opposed to being introspective and just standing there. We always wanted to be well-rehearsed enough and comfortable enough to sing these intricate charts, but to also move when we perform to show the rhythm of the music.

Tell me about the Manhattan Transfer archival projects in the works.

Alan Paul has been working on a Manhattan Transfer documentary for a while now. So, that’s coming. Some of it’s done and hopefully that’s going to be finished in the future. Concord also has a five-CD retrospective coming, but they want to wait until the documentary is ready, so the projects cross-pollinate. So, people can look forward to those.

The Young Generation, 1965: Janis Siegel, Dori Miles, and Rona Rothenberg | Photo: Red Bird

I’d like to name some albums, songs, and performances, and have you tell me the first thing that comes to mind, starting with your first recording: The Young Generation’s 1966 7” single “The Hideaway.”

That was a Richard Perry composition, and he was also the producer. He was from my neighborhood in Brooklyn. I honestly don’t know how it happened, but it was magic. We were 12-year-old girls and we all learned how to play guitar and sing folk and pop music. We were singing stuff we figured out the three chords for. I’m talking about things like Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” and stuff by Herman’s Hermits and The Beatles.

We were brought to Richard’s office to audition by our manager. He had just started in the music business and had started a production company called Dynamite Productions. Richard was engaged to Linda Goldner, who was George Goldner’s daughter. George was a huge guy in the record business. He owned the Gee and Red Bird labels, and had signed Frankie Lymon, Reparta and The Delrons, The Shangri-Las, and The Chantels. He specialized in “girl groups” and we were most decidedly that.

Richard liked us. His other client Tiny Tim was there as well. Somewhere there exists a photo of three 12-year-old girls with Tiny Tim with his ukelele and shopping bag. Wow, he was quite a character.

So, Richard brought us into the studio and had us rehearse and record “The Hideaway.” We sang it live with an orchestra on one mic.

I remember telling all our friends to buy the single. It became a minor hit here in New York. So, I’ve been recording since I was 12, which is a long, long time.

Next up is another early 7” single you were involved in: Laurel Canyon’s “Stand and Be Counted” from 1971.

Wow. “Stand and be Counted” was originally called “All Power to the People” but the week before we were going to release it, John Lennon came out with a song called “Power to the People.” So, we went back in the studio and changed the lyric and title to “Stand and Be Counted.”

I wasn’t originally going to sing lead on the single. A woman named Lotti Golden, who was a very bluesy singer here in New York City, was going to, but for some reason she couldn’t do the session. So, they asked me to do it. I did it with my best blues imitation voice, and that was that.

The B-side is “Don’t Let the Morning Pass,” which I wrote. I wasn’t savvy to anything like publishing, so they put everyone’s name on it, but it was my tune. I’m playing guitar on it, too.

Laurel Canyon was a wonderful group, comprised of myself, Dori Miles, and Anita Ball, replacing Rona Rothenberg. We played a lot in The Village at places like The Gaslight Café, Folk City, and Kenny’s Castaways.

We opened for Big Mama Thornton, which was freaking awesome. I wish I had spoken to her more, but we got to hear her every night. It was funny—she could never remember our name. So, when she introduced us, she’d say “Now, here’s three queens and a king.” That wasn’t a bad name either. [laughs]

Manhattan Transfer performing “Birdland” at the 1982 Playboy Jazz Festival with Weather Report.

We were friends with Joe Zawinul, and we invited him to hear our mix of “Birdland.” We previously worked with Joe and Wayne Shorter, as well.

So, when Weather Report played the Hollywood Bowl in 1982, Joe asked us to come and sing “Birdland” with them. We decided we would end their show with “Birdland” in another key. They were going to modulate it and then announce us as a special guest at the very end. So, that’s how it came together.

We were very, very excited and pumped to do it. I remember we all got dressed up at my house, because I lived so close to the venue. We could hear the show going on while we were getting ready. Then we came down for the final encore.

To sing Joe’s synthesizer solo and Wayne’s solo in front of them was kind of nerve-wracking, but it was awesome.

At Home, your second solo album from 1987.

The album cover was shot at the same place I still live at in New York City. Making that album was such a gas. A lot of it was done live with the band, including members of The Manhattan Transfer band, such as Alex Blake and Yaron. I also had Richard Tee, Will Lee, and David Sanborn on it. All the cats, man.

The Brecker Brothers had a club in New York City called Seventh Avenue South near me where we’d hang out. So, it was a record mostly made with friends.

I also remember having Branford Marsalis on it. We had hired him for a couple of cuts, but he played on four because he wanted to. He just took out his soprano and started wailing on “Bob White.” So, lucky me.

It was produced by Steven Miller, who was known for his work with Windham Hill. It was a lot of fun to make.

I was riffing off the template I used to make Experiment in White, my first solo album from 1982. It was wildly eclectic, and I sort of continued in that direction, but At Home is a little more cohesive.

Manhattan Transfer’s “Soul Food to Go” single from 1988.

As a single, it was a huge hit in Italy. They would demand it every time we played there. It’s a late-night party tune and is very infectious. And to sing with Djavan on it was a thrill. It was reflecting back American pop music through his Brazilian lens. The track is like a double mirror reflecting each other’s cultures back to one other.

The Manhattan Transfer, 1994: Janis Siegel, Tim Hauser, Cheryl Bentyne, and Alan Paul | Photo: Firooz Zahedi

Manhattan Transfer’s “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby” with Phil Collins from the 1994 Tonin’ album.

That whole album was kind of incredible. Unfortunately, we really didn’t sing together with many of the artists, because it logistically didn’t work out. We recorded it in Los Angeles, and Phil did his parts elsewhere. We never met him. But I love the track and the whole record.

Atlantic requested we record the album with Arif Mardin, which was a thrill. And Arif knew everybody. He could just say to Bette Midler, “Hey, want to sing on the new Manhattan Transfer album?” and she would say yes. He also got Phil to do it.

Some of my favorite tracks on Tonin’ include “Let’s Hang On” with Frankie Valli, “It's Gonna Take a Miracle” with Bette, “La-La Means I Love You” with Laura Nyro, and “I Second That Emotion” with Smokey Robinson.

It was a mad expensive record to make. I can’t imagine how much it cost, but Arif was not used to cutting corners.

“The New JuJu Man,” Manhattan Transfer’s take on Miles Davis’ “Tutu” from 2004’s Vibrate LP.

We had previously recorded “Sassy,” which was my tune. And it was kind of inspired by “Tutu” and that whole modal way of writing. So, it was a natural thing to move to “Tutu” and think, “Hey, maybe we can do this.” Cheryl Bentyne nailed Miles’ solo. It’s quite a tour de force for her.

We had Gil Goldstein play on it. He and Roger Treece did the vocal arrangement. It was very challenging, but I love that open, modal, funk feeling. We played it live for quite a while.

Manhattan Transfer’s cover of Us3’s “Cantaloop” from the 2018 album The Junction.

I remember playing that track over and over when it first came out, when Blue Note was sort of trying to monetize their catalog. They’d take these jazz tunes and have MCs rap over them or get a dance remixer in to reconfigure these great pieces. It was a brilliant idea.

Cheryl kept thinking about the tune and the group doing it. When it came time to do The Junction, Cheryl said to Merv Warren, the producer, “Do you think we can sing this?” He said, “Absolutely.” Merv took an approach that was sort of the opposite of vocalese. He melodicized the rap and then harmonized it.

I love “Cantaloop.” Everybody knows the riff and groove. It’s so killing. It was great on stage. Cheryl completely crushed the ending solo every night.

The group also covered Rickie Lee Jones’ “Ugly Man” on The Junction. What are your thoughts about it?

Gee, who could that be about now? [laughs] It was my fault that we did it. She wrote it about George Bush. I really liked it, musically. That’s what attracted me to it. But as we got closer to doing The Junction, I thought we really gotta warn people about Donald Trump, so musically, maybe it would work.

I know people don’t like to hear singers and musicians talk about politics. But I thought we could do a protest song. Everything Rickie Lee wrote is completely relevant today, especially here in New York City. Everyone New Yorker of a certain age is very familiar with Trump, his racist father, their real estate dealings, and the things they did here.

We used to sort of tolerate him as a minor celebrity, his dating exploits, talk shows, golden toilets, and all that. But when shit started getting real, we thought we needed to do something.

Cheryl and I really championed it. The guys weren’t in favor as much of getting political. But I said, “This is deeper than political. This is evil that needs to be stopped.”

Merv Warren was 100% onboard. So, we recorded it using Merv’s arrangement that was dissonant. But then it melodicizes out into some beautiful chords. It’s almost like the four of us are singing the same melody in a different key. That’s why the parts are completely precise. It has this crunchy, slightly disarming sound, which is what we wanted. And then it explodes at the end. It’s also got a very dark texture in the instrumental arrangement.

Mazel: Cantor Daniel Kramer, Janis Siegel, and John Di Martino | Photo: Janis Wilkins

Mazel, your trio album with John Di Martino and Cantor Daniel Kramer, from 2020.

I got a request from Cantor Daniel Kramer in Long Island who contacted me through an agent. He wanted me to do a show at his temple for the congregation. I said yes. He’s a singer and harmony fan, and he’s also a Manhattan Transfer fan. So, I went out there with John Di Martino, a pianist I work with a lot here in New York. He’s a wonderful musician. And we had a great time singing with the Cantor.

I worked up one tune called “Glick” in Yiddish for the concert. I also wrote a little something about my grandfather called “My Grandfather’s House.” It was a really nice experience.

Then John said, “Why don’t we do a Yiddish record?” So, the Cantor raised the money from his congregation to make the album. I loved the idea and making the record. Yiddish music has been incorporated into the Great American Songbook. The Manhattan Transfer had actually recorded “Utt Da Zay,” which had been previously done by Cab Calloway as well.

A lot of Yiddish tunes were used for swing tunes. So, it was fun to delve into that and discover the work of The Barry Sisters who did a lot of Yiddish music between the ‘40s and ‘70s. The Cantor did the heavy lifting with the more well-known Yiddish tunes. It was really a lot of fun to work on this music.

Also, the tune “My Yiddishe Momme” was very emotional for me, because my own mother had passed a couple of years before we made the record. Also, doing it in the Joropo style of Venezuela was interesting, which was John’s idea. I thought it worked well.

Cryin’ In My Whiskey, the 2021 LP of country covers you made with John Di Martino.

I got approached by a label called Night Is Alive in Ohio to do a country-jazz album. That’s right up my alley, because I sang a lot of country music in the group Laurel Canyon, though it wasn’t traditional country music.

I love country and bluegrass. The correlation between country and pop is great. Look at the stuff Ray Charles did and how so many people cover Hank Williams all the time.

I was doing a show in New York City with a friend of mine, Amy Cervini, from the vocal group Duchess. Amy would do something she called Jazz Country. We’d do shows at the 55 Bar in which we’d sing stuff by Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and The Lovell Sisters.

So, I said yes to doing this album. I loved singing songs like “Hard Candy Christmas” by Carol Hall, which was recorded by Dolly Parton. “Always On My Mind,” “Break It to Me Gently,” and “Whenever You Come Around” were great to do, as well.

I did all the vocals and vocal arrangements right in my home studio. The songs address down-to-earth universal emotions. So, it was a lot of fun, too.

Photo: Janis Wilkins

What are your thoughts about the state of the music industry and how artists are compensated for their work today?

I’m an independent artist now, and most of us are these days. It’s not that big of a world. People like me aren’t going to sell records like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, and that’s fine. But I’d love it if there was more support for the arts in this country, that’s for sure.

If artists were compensated better, they wouldn’t have to scratch and scrabble for every single dime just to do a show. It’s insane to think that you have to pay to do shows and perform sometimes. And even when you do a successful tour, you break even, basically. But now, we’re at a place where a lot of artists are trying to get the same gigs. If you’re promoting something, maybe you’ll see some money in royalties if you wrote some of the tunes.

Here in New York City, there’s a very supportive singer community, which I’m very lucky to be a part of, and I try to engender. I have a radio show on WBGO here, together with another singer, Lezlie Harrison. It’s called Singers Unlimited, and we get to play singers every weekend. We try to promote younger singers and celebrate the history of the vocal arts, including jazz and world music. So, I feel like I’m doing something positive in that area.

What’s your view on the value of music to connect and elevate people during such a challenging era?

I think it's crucial. I think it's going to save us. It's going to comfort us. It's needed more than ever because it connects us to beauty. It connects us to listening to other people. It’s about deep listening and maybe even appreciating other people's perspectives. Music is a connector because it's universal. Making music is one of the most primal instincts of humankind from the beginning of time.

I look at my path as someone who facilitates creativity and maybe it connects with someone else's life. The thing that has brought me the most joy over the many years I’ve been singing is to have people say things like, “You’re a part of my world," "You got me through this bad time," "We played your music at our wedding to celebrate our lives together," and "I use your music to relax.”

So, it’s all about wonderful, positive connectivity.

Is there a spiritual element in what you do?

Oh my god, yes. Hell yes. Absolutely. It's all about the universality of our emotions. I’m trying to move people. I’m also hopefully a conduit for the music, and I filter it through my own expression and experiences. It’s through that I hope I can reach the hearts of people and change their vibration.

I think being a musician is very much a healing profession. I think that’s true for singers in particular, because it’s direct. I don’t have to go through a series of chambers, valves, and knobs to do what I do. I can just sing. And I think everybody should sing.